Week 2 Post 3: Depressive Disorders

     Much of the information given about depressive disorders throughout this section of the course were things I had already been familiar with-- symptoms, people's personal experiences, treatments, etc.. However, I was unaware of the complexity of the models used just to try and understand depressive disorders. The Cognitive Behavioral Model of Depression is another extension of cognitive processes such as those explained in Week 1. Cognitive approaches seem to be something psychologists are working towards making more popular among clinical psychology practices. This model connected to a term that I had never heard of before-- Pessimistic Explanatory Style. The focus on negativity in terms such as this as well as many processes and models brings about the question, how many other mental illnesses are misdiagnosed and labeled by society as "negativity"?

    Depressive disorders are the world's leading cause of disability. Diagnosing mental illnesses is also the most difficult process of clinical psychology. Is the lack of research needed to diagnose the reason why mental illnesses are so widespread and severe? And as questioned before, how many mental illnesses have been misdiagnosed due to a lack of information on mental health as a whole? And how do we continue research to further understand mental illness? What other models are we missing to solve this worldwide epidemic? What actions are being taken and what research is being done now to reach this goal? Raising awareness about mental health has become a trend on social media, but how are we reflecting these notions in society to change the course of mental health? How are we taking it more seriously and refusing to accept "negativity" instead of more research and treatments? Even as more research is done, it all comes back to the same conclusion-- there's more issues with mental health across the world than we've ever realized.